Boundaries or Blockades?

I read this book when my sister became involved in a controlling relationship that was urging her to cut off ties with her family. I had hoped that it would offer strong biblical advice about how to recognize control, but it instead offered her more "ammo" for leaving the family.

The book uses Scripture "snippets" to establish points. I think that it delivers a "feel good" message rather than pointing to the authorities that we have in our lives that are set up in the Bible. I felt that the most blatant misuse of Scripture occurs in the chapter dealing with boundaries and your family. Drs. Cloud and Townsend offer the idea that parents of adult children have no say whatsoever in the adult child's life. They use Matt. 15:1-6 to "prove" that adults are not obeying the Word of God when they try to please their parents, when the passage clearly says that the idea of honoring our parents is not excused by saying you're giving to God instead. I agree with them that our first obligation is to our Heavenly Father, but I do not believe that negates our relationship with our early parents.

I also find that in the section entitled "Resistance to Boundaries" there is a good deal of double-speak. On one hand the authors say that gift giving is entirely at the gift giver's discretion, but then they state that people might react to your boundaries by choosing not to give a gift.

The book relies heavily on emotion, which is simply not a biblical way to approach our relationships. While our emotions shouldn't be cast aside, we must FIRST look to the scriptural mandates laid out in the Bible and obey those, not our feelings. I fear that this book could easily cause people to see abuse (specifically control) where there is none based solely on their feelings and not on the facts.